Several weeks ago I referred to the deplorable situation concerning the teaching of science and mathematics in the high schools of our nation. am sure you have seen many confirmations of my statements in recent artic13s in newspapers and magazines.<\/p>\n
Everyone knows that advances in technology, and therefore in the things and the processes that make for more comfortable living, are dependent upon science. The theoretical scientist, with no practical invention in mind, is often the forerunner of a momentous device. We must not forget that behind the atomic bomb was Einstein’s famous formula of 1905, E equals MC square~ by which Einstein asserted that when a particle is released from an atom, the amount of energy thus released is equal to the mass multiplied by the velocity of light squared. Since light travels at the rate of 186~000 mi les per second~ and Einstein’s formula was in terms of centimeters per second, if you want to determine how many ergs of energy are released in one gram of matter; you must first find out how many centimeters there are in 186~OOO mi les; then multiply that resulting number by itself. You wi I I find that, if a single gram of matter is released in a nuclear explosion, the energy released is more than six tri I lion ergs. That is why an atomic bomb is so destructive.<\/p>\n
It is because science is so important, both for peaceful industrial expansion, as wei I as for mi litary defense, that the nation with the best science and technology — indeed with the best scientists and technologists — can be sure of leadership in the modern world. It is for that reason; not merely because we fear our own destruction, that it is weI I to note a comparison of scientific education today in the United States and in Russia. Last June more than a mi I I ion young people graduated from Soviet secondary schools. During their\u00a0 years of schooling, everyone of them had taken five years of physics, four of chemistry, five of biology, and ten of mathematics. By contrast, less than a third of American high school graduates of last June had taken any science at al I; half of them had never studied a single day of algebra. What is more:<\/p>\n
Russian chi Idren attend school six days a week for a total of 240 days a year; contrasted with our five day week of 180 days. Hence, in their ten-year cur~-riculum, the Soviet schools actually cover more ground than we cover in twelve years.<\/p>\n
Whi Ie we are gaining slowly in the construction of large, centralized high schools teaching chi Idren from several communities, the Russians have made such schools a definite policy. In that way they insure that specialized subjects are taught by teachers adequately trained in the subject matter. Here in the U. S., because half of al lour high school students are in small schools with small teaching staffs, only a fraction of the teachers can confine their teaching to one subject for which they have been specially trained. The result is that we have a lot of teaching done by teachers who would be the first to admit that they are poorly prepared in subject matter to meet some of their classes.<\/p>\n
This siTuation is especially critical in the field of science. The demand for scientiSTS in industry is so great that our col lege graduates trained in any of the sciences are snapped up at once by the big corporations. Very few of them go inTo high school teaching. Yet classes in chemistry and ohysics must somehow be taught. The school authorities have no other recourse but to assign those classes as best they can — and that best is often far short of competence.<\/p>\n
The outstanding reason why more of our high school boys and girls are nOT studying science is because many of the teachers do not themselves know the subject wei I enough to present it attractively to the pupi Is.<\/p>\n
Of course there are exceptions. In the larger high schools of Maine the sciences are taught well by trained specialists, and occasionally in a smal I sChool you wi I I find someone teaching physics and chemistry who knows those subjects well. But country over, the situation is just as I have described it.<\/p>\n
Science teaching, as a whole, is not in competent hands in our high schools.<\/p>\n
Some time ago I told you about Winslow’s old tin mine. Did you know that in the days gone by there was quite a lot of mining carried on in Maine? In 1846 the Katahdi n I ron \\1orks were opened near Brownvi lie in northern Piscataquis.<\/p>\n
Those works continued operation for 44 years, and produced in some of those years as much as 15,000 tons before the works were closed in 1890.<\/p>\n
Lead ore, containing also copper, zinc, gold and si Iver, was found near Lubec, in Washington County, as early as 1832. After being worked for a few years, the property then lay idle unti I 1870, when it was reopened and operated by improved methods for about 20 years.<\/p>\n
Ma i ne ‘s rea I mi n i ng boom came in 1879. I n that year \\1 i II i am Stewart, who had been a gold prospector in California, returned to his native Maine and vi sited severa lsi tes in Hancock County. He repor’teo: “oy IItdn::s -j dL:L:t oenT I tloa’ted into mining regions of Eastern Maine, and after fatiguing explorations in the counties of Hancock and Penobscot, I am prepared to assert that this is truly a promising si Iver-bearing region. ‘can assure you that I have recently examined mines which for fertility of silver will comoare favorably with first class mining properties in Colorado and Nevada.f!<\/p>\n
Shortly after Stewart made his report, 600 men were employed at Blue Hi I I; 550 at Acton, and 4,000 at Sullivan. The Sui livan ores assayed especially well, with high content of si Iver. As a result, no fewer than fifty companies were organized to sink shafts in the Sui livan region, with a total capital of $25,000,000.<\/p>\n
The most profitable of the mines, however, proved to be not at Sui livan~ but at Blue Hi II. There the Douglas mine became acknowledged as the richest copper mine in Maine. Between 1828 and 1883 it produced 2,000,000 pounds of copper. The mine, which had cost only $12,000 to install, was sold at auction for $75,000 in 1883, and was not reopened unti I World War I caused unprecedented demand for copper. In 1917, therefore, the American Smelting Company took over the old Douglas mine, installed modern machinery for concentrating the ore, and shipped the concentrates to Perth Amboy, New Jersey.<\/p>\n
Except for the present interest in manganese in Aroostook County: mining is a dead industry in Maine. But who knows when something may be done with the molybdenite deposits at Brunswick, the beryl deposits at Paris, or the antimony at Vanceboro? Then there is the placer gol d wh i ch can sti II be recovered in small quantities from the streams flowing into the Rangeley Lakes, or from the headwaters of the Kennebec. Yes, there are sti I I minerals and metals in Maine, but whether in marketable quantity is highly doubtful.<\/p>\n
Sarah Bixby Smith, the California woman who was responsible for preserving the diary of Dr. Thomas Flint, who before he became a rancher in California~ had been the principal witness in Watervi I Ie’s first murder case in 1847, has a lot of i nteresti ng th i ngs to say about 19th century life in the Go I den West in her book ~!Adobe Days!!.<\/p>\n
have already told you how, in that book, Mrs. Smith showed her appreciation for Maine, especially that region near Skowhegan, Norridgewock and Anson, which she visited as a chi Id. Tonight let us turn our attention 3,000 miles away to Mrs. Smith’s native home in California.<\/p>\n
Perhaps you reca II my te I ling you that three fami lies lived a sort of communal life on a ranch owned by Flint, Bixby and Company in California. There were three sets of living quarters, but a common dining room and kitchen. On that San Justo ranch, near Monterey, the fami lies of Thomas Flint, Benjamin F lint, and Llewe llyn Bi xby lived together for severa I years.<\/p>\n
Now let us see what Mrs. Smith has to say about this arrangement. She wrote: t’The plan of housekeeping was for each wife in turn to take charge for a month. It was no small undertaking to provide for the household with the growing flocks of chi Idren and the frequent addition of visiting sisters, cousins or aunts. The three women, being individuals, had differing capacities and ideas, and each had the desire for a home managed according to her own notions.<\/p>\n
Imagine the difficulties when a corps of servants must accept, the first of each month, a new mistress. Imagine sitting dONn to every meal with six parents, twelve chi Idren, and half a dozen guests. Inevitably the communal p I an cou I d not but fa i I to be a I together idea I. Somehow it he I d togethe r for fifteen years, but there were many trips to San Francisco to rei ieve the strain;<\/p>\n
or long visits of mothers and chi Idren to Maine, that might not have been so frequent or of such long duration if there had been individual homes for the cousin-partners. Ultimately the Ben FI ints went to Oakland, and we moved to Los Ange les, leavi ng on I y the Dr. F lints at San Justo.<\/p>\n
Especially interesting is Mrs. Smith’s account of the Los Angeles of her ch i I dhood. Los Ange les, that great spraw ling metropo lis of the \\~est J <\/em>is today in area the largest city in the world. So closely joined are its various parts that not even old residents can tel I you whether many a section is a part of the city of Los Angeles, a separately incorporated community, or the unincorporated area known as Los Angeles County.<\/p>\n One could make no such mistake when Sarah Bixby Smith first came to the Ci ty of the Ange Is. She starts th i s part of her story by te I ling us: ~!Los Angeles was about 60 years old and I about one when we first met, neither of us, I fear, Taking much n~tice of the other.” She does nothing to hide the real Los Angeles of 70 years ago. She says: ‘~Los Angeles was angelic only in name. She was a typical frontier town with primitive, flat-roofed dwel lings of sun-dried brick. Saloons and gambling houses were al lout of proportion to the population, and there were murders every day. The present crime wave was nothing i~ comparison. By the time I got to school I learned the population was 11,311.”<\/p>\n Mrs. SmiTh felt nostalgia for the old days in 19th century Los Angeles.<\/p>\n She expresses her fee lings th is way: HOnce Los Ange les was sma I I enough to be very happy during county fair week, with its races and shows of fine stock and the usual indoor exhibits of fruits and grains, fancy work and jellies. When the fair developed into the fiesta, it became the great flowe:- festival of spring. We saw our red-shirted firemen with their flower-garlanded, shining engines, drawn by the big white horses. Bands played; Spanish cavaliers and their senoriTas were all about; marvelous floats vied for the prizes. ‘What happened to us? Did we grow too unwieldy, or too sophisticated, or were we swamped with mid-west sobriety? We gave our parade to Pasadena, who put it on in wintry January instead of in fragrant, flowering Apri I. San Bernardino\u00a0 has sTolen our orange show. Our fiesta has disappeared altogether.!l<\/p>\n One of the thriving cities of the Greater Los Angeles area is Long Beach. Listen to whaT Mrs. Smith says about it: “Sheep, sheep by the hundreds, by the thousands, as far as the eye could see. Out of the open end of the great wool barn comes the six horse team, starting for Wilmington with its load of precious wool TO be shipped by steamer to “the CiTy’!, which was what we called San Francisco, for indeed it was our only ciTy in those days. But that was long ago. Now the sheep are gone. Gone too is the whole Senora fa Reina ranch. The pastoral life gave way to the agricultural, and that in turn to the town and city. Once it was a cattle range, then sheep pasture, then when first knew it, a huge barley field. Today it is the populous city of Long Beach. The beach itself, now publ ic property, was the private beach of our own ranch. We chi Idren felt the world was ending when it was sold.”<\/p>\n Mrs. Smi th has an amus i ng reco Ilect; on of a famous Ma i ne statesman. She was visiting in Maine during the Blaine-Cleveland campaign of 1884. One day she happened to be on the same Maine Central train with James G. Blaine. He of course rode ina spec i a I car attached to the tra in, but like a II the other curious passengers, Sarah Bixby kept her eyes open for any appearance of the great man. When, at one station stop, Blaine got off to have a cup of coffee, t he California girl found that this political idol had feet of clay. She wrote: !7Mr. Blaine poured the hot coffee into his saucer to drink. ~\/as that playing pol itics, trying to be one of the people? Perhaps! But I like to think it was because the mouth of a presidential candidate is just as susceptib Ie to heat as is that of any other morta I. Anyhow I was much amused, for even in the wi Id west I had not been accustomed to saucer-drinking.!!<\/p>\n Sarah Bixby made many tr ips across the conti nent. She attended \\1e <\/em>lies ley Co I I ege and went home not on I y eve ry summer, but on two occas ions for the Christmas recess. Her fami Iy had plenty of money, so she traveled by the best Pullman service then avai lab Ie. She had affection for all New England; she dearly loved Central Maine; but she remained constantly loyal to her native California. She wrote: “With great delight each June, at the close of the college year, I left MassachuseTts, beautiful to look upon, Intolerable to live in, going to California’s comfortable southwest coast. I was always sped on my way by the pity of friends who ignorantly supposed that Cal ifornia climate was so much warmer than the eastern in summer as in winter. r doubt if any of my friends were as cool <\/em>as I all summer long.”<\/p>\n I wonder how Sarah Bixby Smith would explain Los Angeles’ 105 degree temperature day after day for a whole week in September, 1955?<\/p>\n Year: 1956<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Read the script for “Little Talks” program #288, broadcast on January 15, 1956<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":405,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[790,35296],"tags":[],"builder_content":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7588"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/405"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7588"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7588\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7588"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7588"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7588"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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